


Everybody's Just Full of Surprises

by Oncemorewith_tension



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), My Chemical Romance
Genre: Bickering, Fun Ghoul is a disaster but hes a good older brother figure, Gen, the others are just a disaster.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:35:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22241152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oncemorewith_tension/pseuds/Oncemorewith_tension
Summary: For a request calling for Ghoul babysitting the Girl and despite popular predictions, doing quite well.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 39





	Everybody's Just Full of Surprises

“Are you  _ sure _ that this is a good idea though,”

Ghoul is sitting in a chair, wrapped up in a Batman blanket with the other three standing around him with various expressions ranging from concern to frustration. The Girl is singing quietly to herself in the room behind, some old nursery rhyme that Pony taught her. Poison sighs.

“Well, we can’t leave her here alone, and we can’t bring you with us. What do you suggest?”

It comes off a little harsh put Poison doesn’t mean it, and Jet puts a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s not that hard Ghoul, she can mostly look after herself now anyway! She’s like six, and besides, you’d only need to like, make sure she eats and goes to sleep and doesn’t try to like, climb the diner or anything,” Jet goes for a reassuring smile but it comes out a sort of grimace as Ghoul rises from his chair, limping to the side to lean on the doorway to the girl’s room.

“But that’s just it! You guys have to stop  _ me  _ from doin’ dumb shit like that, how am I gonna look after her!”

Kobra nods vigorously at this. “My point exactly! We should be leaving someone to look after Ghoul, not leaving Ghoul to look after someone,”

Poison sighs again, this time obviously making a decision. 

“Look. We have to go. Ghoul will be fine and so will the Girl or God help me you it won’t just be your leg that hurts,” he gives Ghoul a pointed look. “We will be back before daybreak. It will be fine, just keep an eye on her and if you feel the urge to do anything… let's say  _ fun _ by your standards, crush it,” Poison finishes with a wave of his hand, obviously showing the crushing that will happen to Ghoul if he does anything wildly unclever. Ghoul gives an accepting nod and tries to swallow his nerves.

Kobra remains characteristically quiet, worrying their lip, and Ghoul gets the feeling that it won't just be Poison that berates him if anything happens to the Girl. Kobra nods though, trusting Poison because most of the time their leader does  _ actually _ make good decisions, and picks up their gun, holstering it and moving towards the door. Jet looks satisfied, obviously having much more confidence in Ghoul than Ghoul has in himself and stepping towards him as the Kobra and their brother move away.

“She’s really a good kid, Ghoul. She’s so easy to look after, you might even find yourself having fun,” This time Jet gives him a properly reassuring smile. Ghoul returns it as he turns away, and the three of them filter out of the diner.

-

Ghoul can hear the distant revving of the Trans Am as he hesitantly approaches the door to the Girl’s room. She’s humming now, still quiet but enough to let Ghoul know that she’s not distressed. He moves into the doorway, and hovers, watching her draw for a moment.

“I’m nearly seven, you know,” She doesn’t look up but she’s obviously talking to him.

“Uh... what’s that, Motorbaby?”

“I’m nearly seven. I know that climbing the diner would be dangerous. You don’t need to worry about me,” She looks a little offended at the earlier suggestion, but gives Ghoul a grin. He relaxes a little and clumsily moves forward, pulling out a chair and sighing in relief as he sits, the pressure taken off the injury.

The Girl giggles. “Old people make that noise when they sit down! You’re old!” She, naturally, finds this hilarious and Ghoul rolls his eyes but smiles at her.

“Not that much older than you are Motorbaby, maybe you’ll start findin’ grey hairs soon,” He jokes, but he really isn’t  _ that _ much older, barely considered an adult by city standards. Or at least, that’s what he tells himself.

She squawks, clutching at her hair before laughing more, jumping up and climbing into Ghoul’s lap, handing him a drawing. He takes it from her.

“And what fine art is this?” He unfolds it and she kicks her legs back and forth in excitement hitting against his injured one. The movement sparks pain but he doesn’t move her or even grimace at the ache, just grins down at the drawing.

It’s a little hard to make out, but it’s definitely them, him and the other guys, Poison’s bright blue jacket and red hair, Jet’s thick curls and big sunglasses, Kobra’s exaggerated long legs and Ghoul’s own cartoony mask marking each of them out. She’s drawn them as a group, surrounded by little doodles of her toys. Ghoul feels his heart well with what can only be pride.

“Motorbaby, this is amazing! Look at how cool you made us look!” He carefully places it back in her hand and she makes a delighted sound, hopping up to place it back on her desk, aside from the other pieces of paper in its own place. “You have to show the others when they get back,”

Her grin is wide as she turns again, settling back in her seat to start another picture. Ghoul sits back in his own chair, and decides that maybe this won’t be so difficult.

-

“You just had to cause a scene!”

Kobra is shouting, crouched in a doorway. Poison is a little in front of them, further in the corridor and shielding his body behind some kind of table, his rolled jacket sleeves exposing pale arms flecked with paint. Jet is vaguely behind within the doorway, occasionally brushing against the back of Kobra’s jacket when he leans away from the gunfire.

“I did  _ not _ cause a scene!” Poison yells back, indignant and missing like four shots in a row. Kobra compensates by taking out the drac about to grab their brother by the hair and rolls their eyes.

“He told you to smile and you punched him in the neck!”

Poison grunts. “I punched him in the neck  _ and _ he passed out, but I did  _ not _ cause a scene!” He throws his body forward, missing another shot at drac down the end of the corridor and landing on top of another, awkwardly pinning it. “I did not cause a scene, because I  _ know _ how to cause a scene and that wasn’t it!”

“Whoever caused whatever scene,” Jet spits, “Needs to start having perfect aim or we are not gonna make it out of this damn corridor!” He rushes forwards past Kobra but has to duck down behind the table as another six or seven dracs round the corner into the already cramped corridor. The one under Poison lands a hard punch to his stomach and Poison flails, kinda jamming both his elbows down onto the dracs face in shock. It doesn’t have much power behind it and the drac just throws him off, scrambling back as the new wave of black and white masks marches towards them.

“Fuck!” Jet hisses as Poison moves back behind him, checking his gun. Jet leans up and aims, fires, and hits the closest drac right between the eyes. Poison gets another in the stomach, but Kobra can see more approaching and winces as a shot narrowly misses the top of Jet’s head. 

Unexpectedly, Kobra is suddenly pulled back, out of the safety of the doorway by a hand on their jacket. They stumble noisily back, gasping as the barrel of a gun is pressed to their head. Poison turns and yells something, but the voice behind Kobra’s head is louder, clearer and calmer.

“I never even dreamed you’d come to me. It certainly simplifies things, I should thank you!” 

It’s Korse, and Kobra can tell he’s confident and pleased, his grip on Kobra loose enough that Kobra could pull away. They have no doubts about what the consequences of that move would be. Two more dracs pull at Poison and Jet, disarming them.

Jet gives Kobra an almost scared look as the exterminator starts pushing him back down the corridor, and Kobra realises for certain that this is going to be much more difficult than they first thought.

-

Incredibly, Ghoul is almost totally relaxed. Jet was right, Ghoul did kind of have fun - the Girl wanted to play hide and seek after she finished drawing, to which Ghoul agreed as long as she promised that she would not leave the diner and would demonstrate her impressively loud and alarming scream if anything went wrong when he couldn’t see her, and then they had an awesome conversation about robots over a can of Power Pup. 

She’s sitting next to him now, curled in a ball in her chair and yawning. Ghoul’s been playing Jet’s guitar for her for a little while now, and after he’d gone through all the songs she likes three or four times he’d just started making tunes up, trying to find new orders in which to play old chords.

“Tired, Motorbaby?” His voice is low, as not to disturb her. She nods and gives him a small smile. In the back of his mind he thanks whatever God made this one of the nights where she isn’t bouncing off the walls and impossible to get to sleep and stops playing the guitar.

She shifts a little then, sitting up and widening her eyes in feigned alertness.

“Don’t stop!” She leans forward and clumsily plucks at a string with her small hand. Ghoul 

“My fingers are gettin’ tired”

“Well damn Motorbaby, we gotta get you playin’ it, can listen as long as you like then,” He moves the guitar away from himself a little. “Mind you, I don’t wanna be hearin’ you bitchin’ about your fingers hurtin’, get enough of that from Poison and he doesn’t even play,”

“I won’t, I won’t!” She giggles in excitement and reaches her small hands for the instrument. 

Ghoul passes it silently, wondering what she knows without any prompting. She is far too small for it, straining to even see over onto the strings, but she is delighted when she drags a thumb heavily over the first string and it makes a low noise.

Ghoul smiles. “Yeah, like that motorbaby. Now you know people like us gotta find our own way of learnin’ these things, but let’s just see what noises you like,” He adjusts her hands a little, and patiently begins to teach.

-

Kobra struggles forward, but the drac just tightens its grip and presses the ray gun hard into their back, aching dully. Poison is barely conscious, bloody and lying awkwardly across the floor, twitching a little every now and then and Kobra has a very sick feeling that the twist of his arm may have snapped bone.

Jet is a little in front of him, crouching, struggling to stand back up. The blood of the side of his face just beginning to dry as the Dracs push him back down again, roughly and causing him to let out a worrying groan.

“What was your intent coming here?”

Korse is leaning, almost casually against the wall in front of Jet, but his demeanor is tense and aimed.

Jet spits blood on the floor next to him and twists angrily in the Dracs grasp. 

“You will comply,” Korse’s face is unaffected but Kobra can tell he’s getting frustrated now. “I will have obedience and the company will have you,”

Poison turns his head then, chuckling wetly. “So dramatic,” The words are forced but there’s a crooked grin on his bloody face. The comment earns him a kick to the gut and he chokes. Kobra flinces again.

“Now then!” Korse claps, “I only see three of you little rats here, and I really can’t have loose ends,” He moves in on Jet again gripping his shoulder hard enough to make Jet wince.

“I am  _ dying _ to know where Fun Ghoul is, feel inclined to share that?”

Jet spits down again and Korse throws him back with a fist to his jaw in response. The noise Jet makes is short, and higher than usual, and Kobra can tell that the man is struggling to suppress his pain now. “I thought not. A shame, but three is still very good. The Director will look forward to meeting you and… well, making her improvements,” 

Korse turned his back on them and moves across the room, motioning to a few Dracs. One forces Jet to his feet, dragging him to stop in a concerning slouch next to Kobra while the other attempts to do the same with Poison. The redhead is too out-of-it though, a dead weight under the Drac’s attempts. Another steps in then, and Kobra cries out for their brother, not sure if in anger or fear or sympathy as they drag him by his already injured arms.

The sensation must rouse Poison as they seem to gain his attention then, and he exclaims in shock. Kobra is expecting the worst, for the Dracs to retaliate and Poison, in his weakened state to simply take it, but as they turn Poison rises a little, draws his injured arm in and kicks one of them, hard.

They can see the defiance in their brother’s eyes and they know his fire is back. One swift exchanged glance with Jet and Kobra is struggling for all he’s worth, throwing an elbow into the face of the Drac holding him and immediately heading towards Korse, stepping into the space between Poison and the Exterminator and blocking their brother from view. 

Kobra can hear Jet and Poison yelling behind them, at them or to each other he’s not sure. All they can focus on is Korse as he confidently approaches them, and the exit behind him.

-

Ghoul doesn’t even think to worry about the amount of time the other three have been gone for, if he’s honest. He’s half snoozing, half still strumming the guitar, and mostly waiting for the Girl to nod off. He’s working out a new melody and manages to accidentally play something that sounds dangerously close to Sweet Home Alabama when she seems to nod off entirely. He chuckles to himself a little, lifting the guitar off of himself and hobbling towards the back room to replace it where Jet keeps his stuff.

It’s a pretty bare room aside from the crates stacked into something resembling a desk in the corner, Jet’s latest droid project splayed in pieces across it. The pieces of metal are brick red and black with little veins of gold running through them, intricate and specific and functioning in some way that Ghoul, at least, could never understand. Ghoul swiftly places the guitar back in its place, a little gap between the desk and the wall, careful not to disrupt anything on the crates.

He moves to leave but pauses as a photo near the back of Jet’s desk catches his eye. He recognises it of course, he’s seen it hundreds of times as one of the only surviving photos of them from before but it always catches him, the way it doesn’t even look like them anymore but could never be anyone else. It’s not exactly a great photo - the room they’re in is poorly lit and they aren’t posing in front of a camera, the shot positioned to capture their likenesses and nothing fancier.

He vaguely remembers the basement it was taken in, a friend of a friend of a friend’s home or something like that. It was taken the night that they had met Jet, right before the laws had changed regarding movement in and out of the City, when there was still a chance that the Better Living Corporation could not sink its claws into any and every person it came across. Jet was the only one who had never lived in the City like the rest of them, and the tension on their faces as the tallest of them tried to convince them to leave was obvious. Ghoul finds it almost ironic how worried the four of them were about moving while even that was still legal compared to what they fear now, compared to the nightmares about the masks that make you kill your own friends.

There was a clatter somewhere in the diner then, and Ghoul’s heart jumped. He reached for his gun and immediately made his way towards the Girl’s room, stealth be damned, but then he hears a voice he recognises.

“Ghoul!” It’s full of panic but Ghoul’s just glad it’s not a Scarecrow. He releases his gun, but then notices the stress in their voice.

“Fuck, Ghoul!” It’s just Kobra this time, and their footsteps sound abnormally loud and clumsy. Ghoul stumbles up and moves in the direction of the noise.

“Guys come on, shut up, you’re gonna wake-  _ Christ _ !”

Ghoul walks in to see the other three, huddled in the middle of the room. Poison is slumped between the other two, eyes glazed and slipping open and closed as Jet tugs his body up by his shoulder. Jet himself is wincing in some degree of pain under Poison’s weight and he’s obviously bruised, blood drying on his face. Kobra pushes Poison off of himself and rushes past Ghoul into another room, and Ghoul catches the pained sensitivity in his movements.

Ghoul stumbles to try and pull out a chair, and Jet makes an appreciative noise and sort of dumps Poison’s body in it, groaning with the effort of moving him and clutching at his own side as he moves back. Poison’s head falls worryingly to the side as he slumps and Kobra, obviously now the least injured of them, returns from the back room with the first aid kit.

“What happened to you guys? What the hell went wrong?” Ghoul works on getting Poison’s jacket off and works at cleaning the large gash on his head while Kobra deals with Jet’s hand, which Ghoul can now tell is covered in both Poison’s and his own blood.

“Korse, n’ some uh…” Poison waves a hand at the missing words, then winces as Ghoul begins to clean his wound. “Couldn’t get the… the- ah!” 

“Your arm? Shit, is it broken?” Ghoul prods it with a finger impulsively and Poison writhes away.

“Fuck, you fucker! Yes it’s broken, you want me to break yours too you asshole?” Poison grits his teeth as Ghoul moves to inspect it but Ghoul is unconcerned by his threat. He’s entirely confident in his Party Poison Ass Kicking ability if it came down to it.

“Nah, then who’s gonna kiss it better huh? Shit man, we’re gonna have to get the Doc for this one, my mad medical expertise doesn’t stretch this far,”

Kobra looks away from where they’re focusing on Jet’s bandaged hand and purses their lips. “I’ll see if I can reach Pony, heard that they’re back at the station for now,” Kobra’s eyes widen then, “Ghoul, the Girl? Is she-”

“Happy and asleep,” Ghoul smirks proudly, gesturing behind him. “Don’t know why you guys doubted me, obviously I’m the most responsible and carin’ of you all, what with Motorbaby and I having such a great time and all,”

“Yeah? Well that’s just excellent you proud bastard, cause now we’re more out of action than you are. Gonna demonstrate your epic ability to empathise by getting me a blanket or some shit, I’m fuckin’ cold,” Poison’s ability to cuss Ghoul out was obviously unaffected but Ghoul could see that the guy was still in a great deal of pain.

“Nah, you can get off your ass and get it yourself, you look fine to me,” smiled Ghoul, but he moved towards the storage room to grab some blankets.


End file.
